The North American electric power network is often considered the largest and most complex machine in the world with approximately 15,000 generators in 10,000 power plants and hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines and distribution networks. Modernization of the electric power network to make it a so-called “smart grid” includes an extensive addition of communications networks distributed throughout the electrical transmission and distribution systems. Thus, the North American electric power grid is also becoming an ever more complex system that may be exposed to cyber-attack.
A common solution to defend against cyber-attack and secure the integrity of the power grid is to use encryption, which can provide confidentiality, authentication, and secure communications. The challenge is that there are tens to hundreds of thousands of power system devices installed throughout the grid that perform critical functions from power protection to power flow control and optimization. In order for encryption to work, encryption keys must be distributed to each of these devices in a secure manner. Loss of an encryption key can render the encryption useless.